Young Peoples and Human Rights Ghana

Human Rights of most-at risk population in Ghana have been a challenge for in the past and continue to be a challenge even with the increase in funding targeting these groups. Though there are services and programs going on targeting these populations, there are several gaps that continuously affect these programs. Few of such gaps are captured in a statement issued by the Coalition Against Homophobia in Ghana (CAHG) Please read the full text below; Accra 4th October, 2011. The Coalition Against Homophobia in Ghana (CAHG) is deeply concerned about a statement issued by the Ghana Aids Commission (GAC), captured by the Daily Guide on Friday 3rd June 2011. This statement was only recently brought to the attention of CAHG members. The statement was headed “AIDS Commission Monitors Gays”, according to the newspaper, “in reaction to reports of gay activities”. In the statement, Dr. Angela El-Adas, Director General of GAC, said that the MSM (men having sex with men) situation in Ghana was ...

Date: 30-Sep-2011 The American Embassy in Accra was on Friday September 30, besieged by angry Visa Lottery applicants, who are blaming the authorities at the embassy for neglecting their pursuit of Visas to the United States. Scores of people from different parts of the country complained bitterly to Citi News that they have been abandoned for weeks by the American authorities, after securing the necessary requirements and five passes needed for their Visas. Others also recounted the inconvenience they have faced over the last couple of weeks saying they do not have places to sleep at night and sometimes have to pass the night at the Tema Station. Some of the applicants at the Embassy who expressed their resentment about the way they are being treated said authorities at the American Embassy must respect their rights as Ghanaians. “We have been here for some weeks now and people have been here for months, some came in as far as February, at least if you will not give us the Vis...

Rapid Testing Sharply Cuts HIV Patient Dropout Rate By: Talea Miller HIV clinic in Mozambique. Photo by Talea Miller. Every time an HIV clinic tells a patient to come back for more testing or for laboratory results there is a risk the patient will never return. This happens so frequently in sub-Saharan Africa, where more than 50 percent of HIV-positive patients drop out of programs before starting treatment, it has it's own terminology: lost to follow-up. With the use of new rapid test kits -- which measure immune system health without having to send samples off site to laboratories and waiting for results -- researchers in Mozambique nearly doubled treatment enrollment and cut the number of patients lost almost in half. Total patient drop out rates before beginning treatment fell from 64 percent to 33 percent, according to results published this week on the La...

By On Top Magazine Staff Published: September 01, 2011 Sam Pee Yalley, former deputy minister under Ghana's Jerry Rawlings administration, has called for gay people to be charged with genocide. In an interview broadcast Wednesday on Citi FM's Eyewitness News, Yalley denied Attorney General Martin Amidu's recent claim that sex between consenting adults of the same gender in the privacy of their own home is not illegal in the African nation. “There is another section of the criminal code which people are not taking a look at, it is about genocide,” said Yalley, a public interest lawyer. “Genocide results in the extermination of the human race and if you expand the meaning of homosexuality to mean that a man cannot have a child with another man, then it means that [the] practice would lead to the extermination of mankind and therefore for me if I am to charge anybody apart from having unnatural carnal knowledge, I would also charge him with genocide and see how he can get out ...

PRESS RELEASE Following the briefing note published by the collective, dated August 29, 2011 about the case of the four persons arrested and detained for homosexuality in Yaoundé, which had been brought to his knowledge (see HYPERLINK "http://sidado.org/latest/nouveau-cas-darrestation-pour-homosexualite.html" http://sidado.org/latest/nouveau-cas-darrestation-pour-homosexualite.html) the collective of organizations ADEFHO (Association for the defense of homosexuals), SID’ADO (teenagers against HIV/AIDS), COFENHO ( group of families with homosexual children) After collecting the details surrounding the arrest, wish to inform the national and international Community about the following facts: Ombwa Joseph Magloire 46 years old, painter receives at his home for his work, visits of tourists. Something noticed by his neighbors who on August 10 2011 decided to alert the Gendarmerie Brigade of the Lake in Yaoundé which came to arrest him on the...

"Shocking new details of US STD experiments in Guatemala Fresh revelations about 1940s medical tests come to light, including deliberately exposing people to sexually transmitted diseases guardian.co.uk , Tuesday 30 August 2011 08.12 BST

Treatment as prevention for HIV The Lancet Infectious Diseases June 5, 2011, was the 30th anniversary of the first reports of five patients with an immune disorder in the US Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention publication Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. In the past three decades, HIV/AIDS has become a global pandemic that has defined an age and has affected almost every group of people irrespective of socioeconomic background, race, geography, or personal history, killing more than 33 million people worldwide. Leaps and bounds made in our understanding of HIV and its progression to AIDS and how the virus and syndrome spread and develop have led to great progress in the ability to manage the disease, reflected by a 20% fall in annual incidence in the past 10 years. Nonetheless, almost 2 million people continue to die each year from AIDS, disproportionately affecting sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, incidence continues to rise in specific risk groups such as me...